Everything we need to know, we learned in kindergarten. Too bad Republicans missed that day.

Margaret, I am beginning to wonder if there are any grown ups left in the Republican party .

I ‘ve been asking myself that question since 2004 when George Bush got 35 more electoral votes and 4.1 million more popular votes than John Kerry. The next day he announced that he had political capital and he “intended to spend it ‘cause that’s the kind a guy I am.” I swear that man was the biggest jackass ever to live in the White House.

It was so good to see an adult take office in 2008 when Barack Obama won 192 more electoral votes and almost 10 million more popular votes than John McCain. But then the Republicans obstructionism in the Senate started and eventually, thanks to the dumb asses in the Tea Party, the complete collapse of any type of governing ramped up 2 years later in the House. They vowed Obama would be a one term President, and everything we learned in kindergarten went right out the window.

This year, Obama won by 126 electoral votes and more than 4 million popular votes. Always changing the rules of the game, the Republicans are demanding that Democrats need to compromise. I hear that McConnell and Boehner actually bragged to the press that they laughed at the President’s plan. Just who the hell are these guys? Even Fox News eventually had to call the election for Obama. You know what, Margaret? If Obama were to leave a flaming bag of shit outside Boehner and McConnell’s office doors, I’d cheer him on. Higher taxes for the wealthy was pretty much the central theme of the election. Mitt was against it. Obama was for it. Mitt lost. End of story.

How about the Republicans finally tell Grover Norquist and the other wackos in their party to sit down and shut the hell up? I know if we leave it up to those Tea Party nut jobs, they’ll be digging up Ronald Reagan’s dead body and running him in 2016.

The Republicans want compromise? How’s this:

In exchange for Republicans agreeing to once and for all get out of our vaginas and our bedrooms, we Democrats will let you start another war just as soon as you get another Bush in the White House.

In exchange for Republicans agreeing to fully fund the social safety net for this nation’s poor and elderly, we Democrats will do everything in our power to starve camels and make the eye of the needle wider.

And here’s the really big one – If Republicans will agree to take Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove and make them simply “disappear”, we Democrats will not let Bill Clinton speak at the 2016 Democratic Convention.

In truth, I am pretty disgusted with all politicians right now. They’ve all gotten a little too predictable for my taste. Republicans want more money for the wealthy and more war. Democrats want to take care of the poor, the elderly and want more money for education programs… On second thought, I’m really just disgusted with Republican politicians.

If this is the best we can expect from Republican leadership, we have a bigger problem than going over some cliff. How about we just pass the President’s plan? If it fails, the Republicans might actually stand a chance in the next election. If it succeeds, the Republicans might finally have to move into the 21st Century.

Show me a fiscal cliff and I will gladly push McConnell and Boehner over the edge. Maybe then the grown ups can roll up their sleeves and get something done. Because how the hell is any deep thinking going to happen if those two insist on spending the whole day pissing in the baby pool? I mean it. Really.

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Our (Australia) gun laws were changed after the 1996 Port Arthur (Tasmania) massacre in which 35 people were killed and 21 others injured. We have not had another one. You could take some pointers from here:

Oh yes Ter, there is ALWAYS hope. Some talk of bigger counties flipping in the next general election: let us pray! And I really like Gilberto Hinojosa and those fine (!) young men the Castro brothers. Yes, there is always hope!

JC, I know Texas is ornery- my pastor daughter lives there. When she first went there to get to know her later to be Texan husband I warned her about it being “a whole other country” and needing a passport in a poem I wrote.
Talks about seceding weren’t a surprise. She, however, lives in El Paso and tells me her congregation wishes they were part of New Mexico and that her county is one of the few Democrat counties in the state. So there is hope deep in the heart of Texas/Dixie. – Terry

Adhi, no democrats or republicans lost here: the whole COUNTRY lost this time! There are no winners here at all!

Gato, and Terry and Terri and all: I am sure I sound like a defeatist (no such thing, I’m an optimist married to a defeatist whom I love very dearly!) but what I AM is a realist. We have capital this minute, but it won’t last, it will be eclipsed, so we don’t have the luxury of time-but Gato, you come nearest when you remind us that these freedoms are a privilege! We have just spent 6 months screaming that everyone has the right to vote, and they will be screaming that everyone has a right to beat arms! Those rights can be limited by the state, but I am telling you, Texas is onery! They will fight any limitation tooth and nail. It’s all very well to talk about funding this and funding that, too, but this edition of Congress is about impossible! You may get your individual states to climb on board, and I’m all for it-but Texaa? Montana? Wyoming? Be glad to hear from some of you folks if you think I am wrong but I am telling you, the Texaa lege makes the US Congress look like a bunch of Nobel prize for cooperation geniuses! And our delegation to the fed house and senate lower the IQ of each! So I don’t see much progress from these parts, but I will cheer and encourage and VOTE! Also, I am a gun-owner: we have a .22 rifle registered in my name. It is bolt action with a six-bullet clip. We live in the country and shoot marauding varmints and dogs (dog lovers need not lecture, I’ve been attacked and so has my husband, not to mention our livestock! And I called the sheriffs dept first!) and have always kept gun bolt open, clip out, and ammunition separate. Now that the kids are gone (23 and 25 🙂 ) there are usually stray bullets in the kitchen that one can grab to dispatch a raccoon when necessary.

Where do I enlist for this “fight”? I’ve signed petitions and I’ve sent emails to the powers that be. What’s next? We’re getting ready to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace and when will we listen to what he taught us about caring for the marginalized, the children, the “least of these”? I have a bumper sticker that reads “When the power of love overcomes the love of power The world will know peace”. Real peace is not the absence of war; it’s the reality of justice for all people. – Terry

Adhi, no democrats or republicans lost here: the whole COUNTRY lost this time! There are no winners here at all!

Gato, and Terry and Terri and all: I am sure I sound like a defeatist (no such thing, I’m an optimist married to a defeatist whom I love very dearly!) but what I AM is a realist. We have capital this minute, but it won’t last, it will be eclipsed, so we don’t have the luxury of time-but Gato, you come nearest when you remind us that these freedoms are a privilege! We have just spent 6 months screaming that everyone has the right to vote, and they will be screaming that everyone has a right to beat arms! Those rights can be limited by the state, but I am telling you, Texas is onery! They will fight any limitation tooth and nail. It’s all very well to talk about funding this and funding that, as well

When detmarcos lost When detmarcos lost any point They star with personal attacks, or just being nasty, instead of saying Maybe we should change and being more like the other side , so all you ball of liberals star with your nasty comments, I now your hate has to come out

Gato, thank you. When you call something ‘complex problem’ and start arguing, is it the person, or is it the access to guns, there IS no solution ever to this problem. The arguments go left, then right then stop. This is how we continue to be in the SAME condition we have been since 1989 (first mass killing in Sacramento). What is the answer: hit both fronts. It’s simple! Reduce the access to handguns, to machine guns, to bullets that work with these guns.

Start funding mental health again for people that fall into the cracks of no medical coverage, fund schools to have properly trained school counselors, increase program requirements in counseling for higher training especially in areas where counselors tend to fall out of their licensing: ethics, burn out, and support. Increase counseling support towards insurance which is higher than most doctor’s malpractice insurance, have more drop-in clinics, more stress relieving classes available FREE such as meditation, biofeedback, etc. This is radical, but in the end, if we start to limit access, increase support towards mental heath care, plus better outreach for gang control, we may actually get somewhere: but we have to DO something, not just jaw jack about it.

Thank you for putting this process into plain English, Gato! I know it will go against the grain for the people who want little or no government but we do need someone to be in control on certain issues just as we need regulations to control anyone who would take advantage of us in other areas of our daily lives. – Terry W.

HI, JC – I am still going through all the posts here, so others may have already said this… But what moral issue is not a “complicated” one? Slavery was “complicated”; civil rights is (sadly) still “complicated”; allowing women to vote was “complicated”…

As you say, after the grieving, it is resolve that must take hold. Change happens only when the majority of a citizenry concludes that the alleged complexity really doesn’t matter in all these issues. What matters is what is good for the populace as a whole, and for the safety, liberty, and responsibility of every citizen. Individual gun ownership is no longer necessary to “protect” the country; many seem to overlook that fact. And the “motivations”, or mental condition of the murderer, really don’t matter, either. The issue is the too-easy availability of powerful firearms, period.

And that is the one thing about which we, as a people, can do anything. Yes; these laws can, and must, be changed, and strictly enforced. Saying they cannot is no different than saying, “We have to keep our slaves, because we can’t get along without them.” Of course, eventually, people had to figure out a way to live without slavery – and they did. And the country did not fall into ruin when blacks and whites were able to drink from the same water fountain, or when women could walk into a voting booth.

And it will not fall into ruin when gun ownership is a highly-restricted, and carefully and regularly monitored PRIVILEGE, granted only to those who are continually able to demonstrate their responsibility and ability to own such instruments of death.

And I imagine that any thoughtful and sane gun owner would agree with me on this.

Our wonderful congress, the House of Representatives, does all funding. Not a dollar can be spent without the House ordering/denying it. We can kill everyone in this world multiple times but we dont have the money to take care of our children with sufficient school psychologists and ways to (enforce the) care for our babies needs. The Congress can work only three out of every four weeks but we don’t have the money for small classes because we’d have to hire more teachers. Disgusting. Absolutely immoral. And that moron, Huckabee, says it’s because we took God out of the schools? Is he serious? What about the shooting in a Temple? O, wait, it wasn’t ‘his’ God. God is missing from the Congress, for sure.

In the UK, even police don’t carry weapons and the crime rate there is very low. OK, we can’t take everyone’s guns away, and I wouldn’t want to. Both my sons hunted, in season; both take the firing pins out of their hunting rifles when not in use; neither would own a hand gun. They are both good men. I understand the jeweler who wants a handgun to protect himself. Not an automatic. The point is that there must be a very thorough background check even if it takes six months to do. It should include a check on anyone living with the gun owner, the gun owner’s history…what other weapons does the gun owner have, school, jobs, marriage status, number of children, illnesses, doctor’s name and address, and at least one recommendation from someone whose backgrund would also be checked. Why would anyone object to that? Unless they had something to hide. I repeat, what was an elementary school teacher doing w/all those weapons in her home where her disturbed son also lived?

Banning guns isn’t going to happen. There are too many people in this secular plural nation of ours that don’t want to see that happen, for whatever reason. And if you want another permanent wedge issue, just like abortion, all I can say is I do not! The right wingers already trot out glib lies to get everyone in a froth at every election cycle with predictable results. I am seriously mulling what we COULD do, realistically, to reduce these episodes of madness. I think Bo is on the right track; I think the sheer complexity of this problem makes it hard to get a handle on any real part of it. Furthermore, I think we need a little distance and perspective; we are reeling from shock and decisions and policies that spring from the morass of emotional stress are frequently not good decisions! I offer the Patriot Act as exhibit A: reams of bad policy that reduce our civil liberties and make us not one whit safer! Let us boil our anger down to a steely resolve and go forth from there!
A good cry might help too.

Hey, Terry – Thanks for the clarification… And please forgive me. I’m just jumping all over everything this evening; the insanity is driving ME to craziness, evidently! Had to turn off the TV with all its endless coverage of the “mystery” of how all this could happen…

As I said to my husband, any time anyone is trying to figure out why things happen, they look for common denominators among events. In these mass slaughters, there are at least three: young men in their twenties, mental illness, and guns. (The last time we heard of a woman, armed with a knife or a crowbar, killing more than a dozen people, was… When…?)

I do believe in the power of intention. If we, as a nation – or even a species – could really DECIDE that we will not abide this kind of thing, we could seriously begin to make it diminish, and eventually disappear. Killing others of our kind cannot be the plan the Universe had in mind for us. Destroying our environment is probably not, either. We continue to be slackers, and irresponsible, and fail to use the good sense our creator gave us.

Gato, I think I misrepresented my son’s comment. What he meant is that the bad guys, the evil people, will always be able to find a way to get guns or any other means of hurting us. The criminals don’t need to go to a gun show or a gun shop to arm themselves. What we do need to do is figure out how to track the guns out there and put in place strict regulations (oops there’s that dirty word that some can’t stand to hear!) about who can get guns and how they’re used. Just recently here in St. Louis a 12 year old boy found his grandpa’s gun which wasn’t secured and accidentally shot and killed his 12 year old friend. There are too many stories like that to justify anyone and everyone being allowed to have guns because it’s our God given right! Oh, wait, it’s our Constitutional right which some relate to God and interpret it to their own way of thinking!

Not having a tv…has this been playing over and over on every channel? Was the last one at the mall in Portland? Or other ones? Is some of the problem that these shootings make the “news” and are played and talked about to the point it stirs up the anger in a unstable person to consider doing the same. Or someone who wishes to be in the spotlight without realizing the end result? A copycat, death by cop or whatever.

Hey Gato, the thing is, these horrible events always seem to happen in idyllic small towns–Aurora, Littleton, Newtown. They happen, we pay attention for a short time, and then we move on. These were little kids, this morning they were looking forward to Christmas, and now they are dead. It’s almost too much to bear.

Hi, Terry W – I respectfully disagree with your son on his contention that “we can’t take everyone’s guns away.” OF COURSE WE COULD, if we,o as a nation, chose to do so.

I think we sell ourselves short if we continue to operate on that premise. Good god; we allowed all kinds of our civil rights to be taken away after 9/11, and very few of us even made a fuss about that – because it was all to “protect” us. Why are we even entertaining the idea that we should do less to protect our own children?

What are we willing to do to protect all of us from some of us who will kill our own? Is this not the most insidious form of “terrorism”?

Terri – You absolutely said it all: “We can’t control mental illness, but we can ban guns.”

I wish F****** Fox (my husband watches, and I stand in the kitchen and kvetch while I’m making dinner) would stop talking about how this could happen in this “idyllic small town only sixty miles from” their studios in NY… Like Bret Baier is personally worried…

One thing this really brings home to me: We in CT are no different from our fellow humans living in Colorado, or Wisconsin, or Darfur, or the Sudan… No matter how sheltered and special we may feel here in the generally serene Nirvana of Fairfield County, CT.

I too am sick over this. I keep thinking of my grandchildren at their schools here in St. Louis and in El Paso. I imagine that the shooter whose mother taught at the Conn. school was innocently allowed in even if there was a locked door. So many children are not protected from people they know, people they consider safe to be with.
My grown son pointed out that we can’t take everyone’s guns away but I have to wonder why buying a bullet proof vest wasn’t a red flag. Who needs one of those other than law enforcement or military personnel? Who needs assault rifles which I see in a flyer from a local “sporting goods” dealer? I guess until one of the right wing NRA nut jobs loses a family member or close friend in this senseless tragedy they’ll stand their ground on their “right to bear arms”. What was originally drafted to enable us to protect ourselves from the British in case of a war has escalated to a group of grown up little boys and tom-boys who can’t see the irony of their stand! – Terry
p.s. I’m just now hearing that the shooter had mental issues so how did he get guns in the first place?

Hi, JC – I’m touched by your concern. Truth is, some of us who post here probably live in Colorado, or Wisconsin, or anywhere else this kind of insanity has taken place…

Now I’m watching some idiot “pundit” talk about how we need to find out about the shooter’s “motivation,” his “background,” his “instability”… As if any of that really MATTERS! WHAT MATTERS IS THAT CRAZIES CAN GET GUNS!!! I don’t give a s*** about his “motivations.” I give a s*** about the fact that he got his hands on so many firearms, so easily. THAT we could do something about, if we had the national will to do so.

All twenty-year-olds are “unstable” to some degree. But WE are crazy to let them get their hands on lethal weapons…

And, of course, we need to remember that the slaughter of children goes on all over the world, every day, many of them killed with weapons we’ve sold to their murderers…

We can’t control mental illness, but we can ban guns. Please don’t tell me it can’t be done, there are too many, all that crap that feeds into the inertia that has led to this. This is just too much, we have to start somewhere. These were five-year olds–kindergartners. The rest of the world must look at us and think we are mad.

(((Gato))) I was afraid it would be near you but not SO close as that!! And oh yes, there is a great deal of money in all this, and the legal storefront with backround checks and taxes collected is the tippy top of the iceberg! The problem is huge and unwieldly: think about the Iran-Contra swaps. We are arming the mexican drug cartels!

Back to Conn, I just can’t see anyone spraying a bunch of third graders with bullets. it’s bad enough he killed his poor mother (mind you, I have known some lousy ones, but still!) AND in front of her class, but what brand of hate makes you see a bunch of hysterical kids as targets??? It’s making me ill to think of it, but how can you hide??

Hi, Bo – and Terri – Of course, Bo, you are right about addressing underlying causes and so on. (And I’m not being sarcastic here; you really ARE correct about all of that.) BUT IN THE MEANTIME, AND FIRST THINGS FIRST, WE NEED TO MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR ANYONE TO GET A GUN, IF NOT FOUR!!

If we don’t do that, first, we are in a position similar to trying to get a crackhead to straighten up, and all the while making sure that all the crack he/she wants is easily available, while we’re discussing it…

I will admit that my fury is raging at this point. I live in one of the towns adjoining Newtown, CT, and this is very close to home. (As a friend said, “This makes Aurora seem next door…”)

This country is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, arms dealers in the world. “We” love our guns; “we” think everyone should have at least one; “we” make tons of money off their sale. “We” are into the easy irresponsibility that comes from standing at a distance from a victim, just pulling the trigger, and watching the victim – whose humanity we have already negated – drop…

I swear, if I ever see another NRA ad, featuring a smiling white woman, holding a rifle and standing next to a pickup truck, with the headline, “I’m the NRA,” I don’t know what I’ll do.

Let them show a dead five-year-old, with half her head blown off, lying dead, next to the schoolyard swing set – or a fourteen year old black kid, on the curb, covered with blood, and use that same headline…

I appreciate your sentiments, Terri. At the same time, stricter gun control laws may be necessary but they would not be sufficient. The pattern of escalating violence requires the nation also to (1) provide more effective mental health services; (2) assist those who are concerned about a mentally-unstable family member or acquaintance; (3) enforce the gun control laws that are already on the books; and (4) ban automatic weapons and high-volume magazines for any and all firearms.
In addition, as a society, we need to seriously deal with the root causes that produce the sense of helplessness, impotence and anger that seems to be increasingly manifesting itself in all sorts of violence — from incivility to mass murder.

I am sick of these mass shootings by disturbed people who manage to get access to dangerous weapons. Let’s pass some strict gun control laws and the hell with the right wingers and their gun fetishes. This is a national disgrace and so, so heartbreaking. Twenty childen, little innocent kids–how can we go on like this?

Bobbie Teresa,
Any Medicare and Social Security that I receive will come out of my own taxes that my employers kindly removed from each paycheck and sent to the government to invest for me. And when I’m on Medicare, I will pay a premium to do so. So, yes, I really am entitled to what I contributed. Sorry if you think otherwise. Merry Christmas or Happy Whatever You’re Having.

R.C…. And what you get out of gratuitous cruelty is exactly… what? Chuckling at the fact that you can piss off a whole lot of people by being a jerk? You’re probably the person at the New Year’s Eve party wearing a lampshade and giving people wedgies and thinking that anyone who smacks you in the face for doing it has no “sense of humor.”

First guy at the bar: “You’re really ugly.”
Second guy: “Well, you’re really drunk.”
First guy: “May be… But tomorrow I’ll be sober, and you’ll STILL be ugly.”

Bravo, Helen! Been a moderate to liberal Dem all my life (My father, also a life-long Dem, said the only thing he regretted in his life was the one time he strayed…and voted for Nixon. In today’s GOP terms, Tricky Dick was a liberal! OMG). So sad for the GOP. I don’t even think they should be called Republicans. They are some other aberration that has stolen GOP’s name. The moderates (what few are left) dare not open their mouths. The true conservatives have long since disowned them (e.g., the late WF Buckley), and that raging liberal Eisenhower must be rolling over in his grave. Even Goldwater was more moderate than the TeaPotty members.

Gato, thanks for the lesson in hoisting one’s petard. My dear old Dad used to use that saying and I think he might have gotten it from Shakespeare. At any rate it sounds like it’s something akin to having a hand grenade blow up before you can throw it. And thanks for the French lesson as well. I’d say it makes sense when you think about it; you can’t fart without suffering from its results either. – Terry

Helen for Queen!! We need to set that up right now and let you make the rules cuz I love how you think.

Such whining and gnashing of teeth with the Baggers. And the finger pointing……..my little grandson says that if you point your finger at someone, there are still 3 fingers pointing back at you. I actually prefer pointing “the bird finger” !!!!

You know, fiscal cliff and debt ceiling are made up words……..by the GOP, of course, to scare people. And this issue is one they created by trying to make sure the President was a one term guy. Obviously didn’t happen. Now they are between a rock and a hard place because they owe their souls to the billionaires who stupidly gave them money and they have no choice but to raise taxes, but the consequences if they do raise taxes on the top 2% will be devastating for the BAgger legislators. Too bad, so sad !!
Their plan is to let us go over the cliff for 2 days and on Jan3rd, they will agree to what is now on the table and then try to take credit for “saving the country” They are swine !!! They they will start with their debt ceiling game.

The debt ceiling is simply paying the bill for the money CONGRESS, ie The House of Representatives, has already spent. The House has been controlled by the Baggers since 2010 so the onus for the spending is on them. they make the decisions on how much to spend and what to spend it on. BTW ***** they made the decision to cut embassy security spending so they are basically responsible for whatever they consider to be bad security in Bengazi at the embassy. You see how they are………it always comes right back to their front door and more and more people are finally seeing the truth.

Please, please, please, go to FCC.gov and on the Home page is a button that says TAKE ACTION. Leave a comment about that damn fauxfox Mogul trying to buy The LA Times and The chicago Tribune. they have rules in place to keep Media consolidation to a minium and they are actually thinking of waving their own rule to allow that jackass to buy the 2 newspapers. We do not need any more Propaganda crap coming from them. Because the corrupt supreme court ruled in their favor several years ago and allowed them to be able to tell their reporters they can lie, it is certainly not in the best interest of the country to have this guy owning not only a huge majority of TV media but now print Media. this has to stop.

The purging going on over at fauxfox is simply to get worse people whom they can control even more to spread their propaganda garbage. Really, pull that guy’s visa and send him back to Australia and let him spew his crap where he sleeps !!!!!

Good news: Better than expected November jobs report! In spite of Hurricane Sandy which was expected to adversely affect it, it’s a good number. Glad President Obama was re-elected and can take some credit.

As a nation we are NOT broke. We are in debt but not any more so than in years past as a percentage of the economy. And the rest of the world is doing much worse than we are – just look at the interest rates on T bills. Other nations are essentially paying us to take their money right now because T bills are the only real safe bet.

“But what is China calls our debt in!” “It would destroy the country!” NOT. The biggest holder of American debt is …… Americans. And the biggest foreign holder of American debt is England. Furthermore, what people that buy T bill are getting is a promise that we will give them dollars when they cash them in. We can print all the dollars we want to so if China asks for their trillion dollars we just run the printing pressings for a couple of overtime shifts. “But than the dollar will loose all its value!” you say. That is not actually true but even if it was that would mean that if China asks for their trillion dollars they will get shafted – so they won’t ask for it.

The biggest problem in our country right now is crappy infrastructure and high unemployment. Not really the time to do the austerity thing.

How anyone can call Obama’s policies a failure when they have been kept from passing by the opposition in the Congress just amazes me. If we actually try his ideas and they don’t work, fine, we’ll move on. But you can’t just call them a failure, block them, then say they didn’t work. We didn’t really try.

Yet somehow we keep trying Supply Side and it keeps failing, but if we just try it again it will work. Bullshit. Never worked, never will.

Really? Really? Your guys are always good and the other guys are always bad???? Really? This is what is totally wrong with “politics” in America. There is so much dislike and distrust on both sides that there is absolutely no chance we will ever have effective government in the near future. AS A NATION WE ARE BROKE….The debt must be paid and then we can have a discussion about what to do next. In the mean time, let’s all be nice and sweet and STOP all this mean dialogue. For heavens sake, it’s Christmas…you know, the time for brotherly love. Let’s at least have a cease fire during the month of December. Let’s reflect on what’s right and CEASE all other forms of criticism…..I want the stars of good will toward men to be brightly shining for a few weeks. Is that too much to ask??????????? Stop the political and reflect on the glorious! Let this be our benediction for just one month.

Delurker: that is hilarious. I distinctly remember G.W. Bush hosting the likes of Sean Hannity, etc. while he was president. They have a short memory; or they think we do. Fox and Friends must be one of the worst shows in the history of television.
A side note: did anyone see Bill O’Reilly asserting that Christianity is NOT a religion; it’s a philosophy? Glad we have him to wage the imaginary “war on Christmas.” Do people really buy this crap?

Thank you again, Helen! Spot on, as always. More and more frequently, I’m embarrassed to be an American—not for what we’re trying to do, but for what the GOP does in order to obstruct what we’re trying to do.

I have to admit that you are a brave soul, sir . . . actually admitting that you worked in the GDumbya administration and all. If things started downhill with Ronnie Reagan, they surely bottomed out with GDumbya . . . and that is when we really WERE the laughing-stock of the world. Our reputation has improved greatly with Obama in office.

I am a retired international attorney and for 8 years during the Bush Administrration, I had to re-assure my clients that I did NOT vote for that idiot. The American electorate was the laughing stock of the world.
However the destruction of the Republican Party began with the ultra-consevatism of Ronnie “Win one for the Gipper” Reagan! I now live in China as I was worried that the uniformed U.S. Electorate would elect “Mitt the Dimwit”

Thanks Helen! Another gem of a post. Call me a bot, I agree with everything you wrote. I can’t remember the last time I disagreed with you on anything.

Our friends across the aisle should realize that this country needs all of us to work on the monumental problems facing us. I agree with them that we need to clean up the waste, there is a lot of wasteful spending out there. However, they never really talk about the subsidies to big corporations much. When wasteful spending is mentioned they are usually speaking of the 47 percent and recently their darling target, “free phones”. Well, I never understood why we should subsidize corporations, which are making money. It goes against the grain of a free market economy, that concept so dear to our fellow republicans. Cut the indirect subsidies to Walmart for example, that should amount to some decent savings for us taxpayers. We subsidize Walmart when we, the taxpayers, have to foot the bill for healthcare and food for the employees they underpay. It is a shame really that such situation should be allowed to exist.

It’s just so apparent that they are SO screwed, and by their own doing… My husband (Universe love him, and I certainly do) is a “Republican” by nature, and even he hasn’t got a single argument in their defense these days. Time to sit back and let them hoist themselves by their own petards, whatever a petard is, and how the hell the hoisting actually happens… (Actually, I just looked that up. A petard is a small bomb, and to be “hoisted by one’s own petard” means to be injured, yourself, by something with which you intended to injure others. It’s also related to the French word for fart… Thanks to wikipedia for that info. And things are seeming more and more appropriate, the more research I do.)

XO to the Porch, and to all the Wise Women, and the Men Who Love Them and have some F-ing RESPECT…

Ladies, I hope the “flaming bag of shit outside Boehner and McConnell’s doors” builds up some steam, which it would if left to ferment in their respective hallways over the recess. Many people would love it, and I would happily volunteer to set them aflame. Then run away. Great post!

Right on with your assessment of the Republicans! The MSM has gotten to the point where I refuse to listen to them. It’s too bad there aren’t more “liberal, progressive” places to listen to other than MSNBC! The Republicans are just a bunch of white noise in my opinion!

Helen, I’ve got something for you to look at, because in my books, it’s just so sad: Amendment CRPD: Campaign Rights Person’s with Disabilities, that was turned down, simply because Rick Santorum and his Goons don’t want to ‘talk to the UN’ at the big person’s table. I’ll get my poem, if you pardon me, it is long, but it mentions exactly what happened:

When I was born, they said; “We don’t think she’s gunna make it”.
When my parents released me and traveled across route 66,
I was in a shoe box.
Given wrong medication meant for a 10 year old,
The shook me every 2 hours round the clock, keeping me breathing
They fought to keep me alive.

When I was 6, my parents made me normal.
No school allowed for the disabled,
Only coloring, music and beds.
At age 10 I was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy,
Because they could only keep me in school by waiting.
My parents fought for me to be intelligent–I had to hide.

My friend went to France,
They Locked up her wheelchair “for evidence”
Entering back into the USA.
She was literally in prison for 5 weeks, until they could conclude, no bombs were found in her wheels.

I wanted to go to London, Paris, and Canada,
But no visa could we get:
“We don’t think Your Gunna Make it”, they said,
“you’re two disabled people on the Lam.”
“You need an attendant to proove that you can.”

CRPD was the amendment,
an addendum to free us for travel,
To be normal, to be free.
Senator Dole wrote it, realizing we were tied up
in Endless bureaucracy.

One man was pulled from a plane,
Never got out of Legardia.
His crime? He was heading for Australia.
“How dare he? He walks with crutches!”
“He has no right to go where he chooses!”

I have sat on endless committees,
Praised for my contributions;
ADA, Faculty Support, EOE, Olmstead, HIPAA, MiCASA,
ED504, the works, Employers, said “she unhireable”
I’ve owned my own businesses since 1992.
They gave up on me,
I fought for my own self dignity.

CRPD, Campaign for Rights Person with Disabilities,
Was to be a joint act between congress and the UN.
It was our ticket to travel, our right to be treated
As an American Citizen,
But senator Santorum and his Goons, In fear of meeting the UN
And their agenda to superseed the government,
Took away our rights.

We rose, 500 groups to protest, calling the Government night and day,
Over 5000 people yelling, “let us travel, Let us be human”
Santorum and his Goons, locked us in a box:
“We the People” is a euphemism; it means nothing.
We ain’t people, we’re just crips.

And like when they’ve given up on me so many years ago,
the Doctors, the hospital, the schools, the employers, our government
has given me up again. The sad part is,
they’ve given up on all of us:
They vote for themselves, not for us.

All my life, I’ve been in training: fight for the right to be human.
I now find that I must say to you all: you must fight for the right to be an American, no matter what they say. Stand up against this fascism of not being people, because my friend, Rick Santorum and his Goons,
See you only as Pawns.—Mary Miller 12/04/2012……sad, really sad.

Thanks Helen, you nailed it again. I kind of wish all the republicans would just leave the country. They could take all the people signing succession petitions with them and live happily ever after in some white, male dominated outpost! Keep up the posts ladies.

That “nudge” over at Faux News is actually the start of a very healthy shove – unfortunately not at the edge of a cliff. Ten to one Rove et al. are actually smart enough to realize this which means they will hate it all the more.

Yet again we thank you profusely. You have such a way of expressing the opinions most of us share in such a funny, succinct, and very real way. “……spending the whole day pissing in the baby pool” (LOVE THAT!)

I’m still laughing out loud over the image you invoked of Turtle Head McConnell and Johnny Boy Boner “pissing in the baby pool! I’m trying to imagine them in their big boy pants instead of Speedos. Better yet a follow up with their moms grabbing them by their ears and dragging them off for a good whoopin’. – Terry

Spot on again! Will be sending this one around to all my Rethuglician friends so they can easily understand the situation. This unfortunately, includes my DH. But we are speaking again after the election…

You’re not wrong. Neither am I; I’m just tired of blowing in the wind. Keep up the good work.

(Consider: the local mayor was speaking with some high school students about an upcoming event — before the problems start — and he told them not to use “such big words.” Stupid seems to be the new smart…or something like that.)

Thanks, wonderful Ladies! It struck me as sort of weird, right from the beginning, that the Republicans immediately started letting all the brand-new Tea Party legislators run their show the minute they showed up in DC, not even out of their Congressional diapers. Where else in the world do the beginners get to call the shots, right from the get-go, in any organization? Makes as much sense as letting the summer mail-room student intern make all the investment decisions for your company his second day on the job.

So this is what they got. Now, if the GOP “caves” on raising taxes, they lose. And if they don’t “cave,” and the country goes into a serious recession… They lose. Sounds good to me! They deserve it – just for being stupid, among other reasons.

Been thinking this for 4 years now. Mitch McFuddle ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail! I wonder If Boener is sorry he ever heard of being Speaker of the House? And if you look at the facts, Reagan would have been considered a moderate (!!) establishment hack by the current crop of Rs. Of course, facts don’t carry any weight with Republicans anyway! That would be the root of the problem I think.

Well, the last item you listed is underway! Roger Ailes over at FoxSnooze has issued a directive to scale down on-air appearances by KKKarl Rove and Dicky Morris. It’s not a total black-out but it’s a start.